The present invention pertains to automotive visors, particularly in a mounting system for attaching a visor to the roof of a vehicle.
Visors are typically mounted to a pivot rod for allowing movement of the visor both from a raised stored position against the roof of the vehicle to a lowered use position for blocking sunlight from the front windshield position or the side window position. The mounting of visors, typically attached to an elbow pivot rod, has been the subject of a variety of different mounting arrangements. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,017,217; 4,529,157; 4,553,797; 4,569,552; 4,634,196; 4,729,570; and 4,989,911 all disclose mounting systems for attachment of the end of a visor rod to the vehicle roof. Of these systems, the ones disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,017,217; 4,529,157 and 4,729,570 employ a bayonet-type mounting system.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,157 discloses a compressive bayonet-type mount which requires a single screw for compressively gripping the sheet metal roof between a backing member and the mounting bezel. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,570 discloses a twist-on type retainer clamp with a bezel on the opposite side of the sheet metal roof for compressively holding the mount to the sheet metal roof. While the '157 patent system requires a screw for attachment to the vehicle once it is inserted and rotated into a locking position, the '570 patent does not require a mounting screw. It does, however, require a special tool which rotates the mount into a locked position once inserted into a keyed aperture in the vehicle roof.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,017,217 discloses a multiple-section bayonet-type visor mount which utilizes the visor rod and attached visor as an installation tool. A compression spring is employed to hold the mount to slots within the vehicle roof thus requiring a significant upward force during installation.
As vehicle sheet metal design is improving, the thickness of the sheet metal has been reduced since strength can be achieved by fabricating the steel in a manner to provide the strength sufficient for vehicle roofs. It is not uncommon for a vehicle roof header, which receives the visor mount, to be approximately 2 mm in thickness. As a result, visor mounts must be designed to firmly grip the relatively thin sheet metal roof header and yet provide a firm anchor point for the visor which is moved through several cycles during its life in the vehicle. The visor mount is a part of the overall visor assembly and it is also desirable to maintain the cost of this part of the visor assembly as low as possible to provide a cost-effective overall visor construction. It has been found that plastic material used as the interface material between the sheet metal roof and visor mount tends to elastically deform or "creep" with time, tending to loosen the visor upon use after installation. As a result, it is desirable to utilize a metal visor mounting structure if possible, at least for the contact with the metal roof member. Also it is desirable to eliminate or reduce any metal finishing steps required to remove burrs from stamped metal parts used in a visor mount and to provide a visor mount which does not require rigid tolerance constraints of the mount itself or the aperture to which it is secured.